But even in defeat they remain a point off the top with a game in hand and with everything to play for.

Karanka has built a squad with strength, balance and functionality and put them on the verge of promotion.

That has bought him a cushion of goodwill and respect that will survive any phone-in fuming and cyber-chuntering.

Middlesbrough manager Aitor Karanka

In that sense he finds himself alongside Steve McClaren.

Boro’s most successful manager ever found himself under fire from terrace snipers from very early on.

The criticism was largely tactical: Dissidents didn’t like his safety first, over-coached approach and tendency to over-think a situation.

Even after Carling Cup glory and a highest ever Premier League finish he took flak.

There was a begrudging respect for the undeniable reality of his achievements but a deep seated resistance to style, his approach, his methodology.

In the face of the facts - the table, the silverware, the European fixtures - the opposition switched to proxy targets and so McClaren’s post-match PR persona, his hair and his teeth became key battlegrounds.

It was all ridiculous really.

Steve McClaren during his time as Boro boss

There are echoes of that in the situation Karanka finds himself in: respected for creating the conditions for success but facing resistance on tactical grounds from a strident minority.

And increasingly there are proxy battles going on: his rotation, his “stubbornness,” his “autocratic” style and his heavily accented interviews are all seized on with every defeat and turned into weapons.

And in that context, his sarcastic swipe at Blackburn has handed his detractors a stick to beat him with.

As with McClaren’s “need to be educated” comment it will become a familiar part of the narrative against him.

And, interestingly, as with McClaren, the battleground is tactical.

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The soon-to-be-England manager made his comment after Boro had been booed off following yet another home draw against a lowly side when he had played one up front.

I forget the fixture, there were so many of them.

Aitor Karanka and Steve McClaren

With Karanka it comes after he had finally played two strikers after months of growing public clamour and media analysis of what is said to be a fundamental flaw.

You may think it strange the manager takes any notice whatsoever of outside agitation and that he should stay focused on the task in hand, but that is another matter.

But why say it at all?

There have been some suggestions that it was a heat-of-the-moment emotional response and that the pressure is getting to him after a defeat.

I don’t buy that.

Adomah celebrates with Aitor Karanka after returning to the side in September

Karanka is a meticulous micro-manager. Almost everything he does is calculated and measured.

He has made similar comments before - about the atmosphere at home, about fans chanting “attack, attack, attack”, about songs praising recently returned naughty step regular Albert Adomah - and almost always after Boro have slipped up or put in a poor performance.

When he makes these interventions that attract so much heat from supporters it has been deliberate.

After a game he does two interviews, one pitch side with BBC Tees and the local press that I am present at, and then upstairs with the national press that the rest of the Gazette posse are at.

And when he wants to roll a hand-grenade in he does it on air and to us then goes upstairs and repeats it.

Several times. If no one asks then he will throw that line in unprovoked. He wants it out there.

I think it is defensive spin, a conscious decision to invite the pressure onto him and deflect attention away from the result or the performance.

It takes the heat off the team.

He has studied under Jose Mourinho after all. It is textbook.

Of course, such a strategy comes with risks.

Aitor Karanka and Jose Mourinho

Especially when the promotion pressure is so intense and the stakes so high.

It runs the risk of alienating supporters and adds another transgression that will be long remembered and will resurface at the next set-back.

It is a slap in the face to the emotionally long-distance loyalists who have spent time and money getting to a game and who are routinely praised for their unstinting support.

But also the ones who are fuming at the radio from home, frustrated by second hand experience and divorced of context.

And the biggest risk is that it comes back to haunt Aitor.

Another poor result or wobble will invite it to be sharpened, dipped in vitriol and thrown back at the manager.

Comments like this become a short-hand for wider debates.

Aitor’s “maybe happy to lose” will become a familiar refrain when fans draw up battle lines and take sides.